This is an extremely nice resort. It deserves its five diamond rating plus some. My wife and decided to book our honeymoon at this resort. From the moment we arrived past the gates I knew we were going to have a great time. I dont want to go into a long review....so Ill make it short and sweet. The service you recieve is remarkable. Rooms are nice. We stayed in what I guess is the standard room(absoulutely nothing standard about it) Our concierge(Rosalita) was beyond helpful. Every single resteraunt was top notch!

We just completed 4 nights at the hotel and would have enjoyed two more, in order to have sampled all of the resturants. The food was better than expected, although we did not visit Ventanas, which is advertised as a Michelin rated 5 star restuarant. The one show we saw was superior (I belive that there are two seperatye shows weekly) although it is a dinner theatre with a limited menue (fish and pork on the night of our show).

Our two disapointmets related to the beach, which continues to be underr intensive reconstruction making it it diffcult to swim in the ocean and the fact that our room, 2337 was right next the the air-conditioning of theor sister hotel Alegria, despite the outstanding views from our Terrace. Management was wiling to accomodate us with a choice of two replaceement rooms, but we elected not to switch.

Other guests were in a party mood and easy to mingle with.

In summary, we would otherwise recommend the hotel, but feel the beach is sveral years away from restoration.

Just returned from our second stay at this outstanding AAA
five diamond resort.
From the moment you check in and are given cool towels
and a glass of champagne,personal attention and superlative
service are the standard all throughout this beautiful resort.
Accomodations are provided in small three story villas
and are luxuriously appointed.
The food at the six gourmet restaurants is first rate and the
service is the best we've ever experienced.
The entertainment is first rate with one of the best singers
and band I've heard in many years.Don't miss the show
at the Club Royale Dinner theater,it's really something to see.
The Spa is 5 star with an extensive menu of services available.
The pools scattered throughout the property include many
relaxation pools,whirlpools ,regular pools and an infinty pool
right next to the beach.
If you want to get away from it all and be spoiled and pampered,
this the place to go.

Having just returned after spending 5 nights at the RH and 5 nights prior in Cancun in a conceige wing of a non inclusive hotel our feeling is that the RH is overated. We had never been at an all inclusive nor have we taken long crusies so that it was a new experience for us. We have however travelled extensively for many, many years.
YES..SI...The staff is the best part of the hotel. Professional and Friendly. They make the experience extremely pleasant.

The footprint of the hotel is actually very small with two adjacent resorts very in evidence. Although we did not find that the noise from the hotels next door that annoying, I think that it's ridculous for people to think that the RH is a quiet hideway when the tacky sounds come wafing over while you are at the pool. Enough has been said about the beach situation.

Most of the rooms in the villas do not have any ocean view . Having stayed at the Manele Bay in Hawaii and the Anna Mandera in Vietnam, which also utilizes a garden villa arrangement with many of the accomodations not having ocean views ,the Royal Hideway is far inferior. The majority of the balconies are small with only two straight back small chairs and a tiny table. No chaise lounges and not private at all.
The bathrooms are nice and having a walk in closet and plenty of drawer space is a plus. The bath amenties are high quality but average, not much better than a Hamptons Inn. Certainly not the 17 that you get at the Halakulani on Oahu.They do have a scale, which you probably don't want with all the eating and drinking you will do. But, you should weigh your luggage. American Airlines.really means 50 lbs. They also have this large shoe butler box in the closet, which seems ridiculous. Are you polishing your sandals? The rooms are an odd shape with a lot of wasted space. There is armoire which contains a small second rate old style TV (the remote didn't even have a sleep timer). The armoire also included a DVD, but in this day and age of large flat screens why you would even want to get a movie to watch on that TV is beyond me. There also was a small refrig which was stocked with soda beer and water. They seemed to figure out what you liked and stocked more of that. For us it was water. Again, the staff is very good....even those that you don't see. We had asked for coffee to be at the room each morning and it arrived promptly everyday. The bed was hard, the pillows not great, old fashion blanket in between sheets. In this day and age of fluffy duvets and great bedding in ** and *** hotels, this is not luxury. They also had this small alarm clock, without any kind of digital read...and it went off our first morning at 5a.m!
Re Restaurants. You do have to do the reservations when you arrive but you can make changes, although this can be tricky because they do have some days when some are closed. We found Las Ventanes far and beyond the best...but....you have to be someone who wants, and is used to very inventive, creative cuisine. Las Ventanas would hold its own in any major city anywhere. Very sophisticated food. We had the tasting menu the first night that we ate there and it was terrific and had wonderful wine pairings with it. We liked it so much that we changed a reservation and went there for dinner again. We did not do the tasting menu and it was still excellent. One of the things that I found really second rate about RH was the wine selection...or should I say,.... lack of it. They basically had the same blanc de blanc and chardonnay at all the restaurants. The choices on reds was also limited. Although the wines were good you could get really tired having the same ones. They had wine lists and you could pay extra for a better selection but the lists we looked at only had very pricey wines. When we returned to Las Ventanas and I asked if we could have the white that had been used with the tasting menu they said that there would be an additional charge. This seemed nuts since they didn't charge extra to have the tasting menu. Considering that they serve top shelf liquor they could do a lot better with their wine choices.

Have a sit down lunch at Spices. You can get a great piece of fish and excellent Mexican food. We thought the Grill was average, Palazzo was very decent but the first courses were far superior to the mains. Re breakfast, the buffet at Spices is average at best, They didn't serve any kind of smoked fish, and the cheeses were boring, no coissants or decent rolls. The waffles and pancakes looked awful...hey, you can make your own waffles at most Marriotts. The non buffet breakfast at Las Ventanes is fine, but nothing to write home about. The wait service however makes up for anything lacking in selection.

We had a laptop with us. At the hotel in Cancun I was able to access from the room at a minimal charge. There are no port in our room for internet access at the RH. The hotel is "wireless". The conceige had the computer people bring some kind of wireless booster which sat right in our room but the access was still annoyingly spotty. The business center did have about 5 or 6 computer and I saw people using their laptops at the pool.

We have traveled extensively and stayed at all categories of hotels and although this probably is as good as you get for an all inclusive it is not a 5 star facility. Don't get me wrong you will have a very pleasant time, as you probably will eat and drink far more than you planned to.